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July 23, 2017

July 23, 2017

Greetings from Sedona, Arizona! I am enjoying my vacation-- on day 4 of 6 at the moment-- and rather than write some bland, nondescript, mamby-pamby travelogue, I thought I would write a special, Sedona edition of the award-winning recurring series of posts on this blog, "Some Things I Think" Written in Larry King/USA Today lucidity?

First, to anyone who is considering coming out to this part of the country: do! Sedona is incredible. It's a town of a little over 10,000 residents (about as large as the largest Columbia villages) with a very easy road structure and three distinct areas: West Sedona, Upper Sedona and South Sedona. West Sedona is the more "everyman" part of town. Upper Sedona is the largest concentration of shops and restaurants, while South Sedona is the more ritzy froo-froo part.

The best hiking and views can be found in the Coconino National Forest between Upper and South. Awesome places like Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock, Courthouse Butte, Two Nuns Rock, and much more.

Sedona is known for its hiking, its red rocks, and it's preferred status by the New Age community. I have a personal belief that spirituality transcends religious boundaries and so I have done some investigation into the things that people in this community do. So far I have found beliefs that truly incorporate tenets of all the worlds major religions, and then some. I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole of religion though so let me just go away from that topic now.

And instead, let me give you..... this!

No, your eyes do not deceive you! Nor is this photoshop. In Sedona the Golden Arches are most decidedly green! As I understand, this happened during the zoning process to approve the McDs in Sedona. The yellow was judged to be too reflective and too bright, and so Sedona boasts one of the few sets of green arches anywhere.

The lesson here? That if a corporation wants a market badly enough, it will compromise in order to clear the barriers of entry to that market. Hmmmm, lesson locally in terms of downtown Columbia, or perhaps TIF #2 in Southeast HoCo?

Another thing I noticed here: there are a lot of solar panels here, and in plain view! There is quite the little solar panel farm outside of Sedona High School-- the home of the Scorpions! Looking at these solar panel arrays, in the open, accepted, and doing their job, make me chuckle about the Western HoCo types who are all peturbed that solar panels disturb their view of some bucolic piece of faux bourgeois farmland or, heaven forbid, a road that some Mullinix/Feaga/Warfield/etc. spit on once.

Other things:

A town of 10,000 isn't too small to become a global destination if there's a reason for people to come. The question to answer is: what the hook? I once thought that becoming the largest carbon-neutral place community on the planet would be such a hook. I still feel that way.

Lots of pride and representation by local Native American tribes. Very fascinated by that and happy for that!

Among the license plates viewed here have been some from a few Mexican states. I think it's easy, given current political discourse, to consider Mexico some global backwater, not a dynamic nation-state with a diverse economy and a highly productive workforce. And wow-- some of them even drive Mercedes and Infinitis!

I've taken the time for a couple side trips on this vacation. One was to the Grand Canyon, which contains beauty that is beyond imagination. The other was to an Arizona Diamondbacks game at Chase Field in Phoenix. The temperature was 104 at game time so the roof to Chase Field was closed. And it was an incredible experience. An indoor baseball game that didn't feel indoors. I'd definitely advise taking in a game in this ballpark if you can. I do admit, though: I stayed away from the three-foot-long corn dog that contained 3600 calories.

In Phoenix I got to see the Arizona State Capitol. It's pretty, but I like Maryland's much better.

All this time, I thought the star in the Arizona state flag was orange. But it's bronze.

And I get how Arizona is becoming a political battleground. Immigration is an issue to be sure, but also, jobs and environmental conservation are huge issues here.

I see things have been interesting in the HoCo the last several days. Was happy to see a successful first large-scale concert at the Chrysalis! Sorry I missed it but I'm sure there will be many, many more!

I might be back tomorrow evening with comment on two potential Maryland gubernatorial candidates!